Have you ever found resurrection in a death experience? Let me break that down a little. When you go to a funeral parlor, do you expect to find your knight in shining armor there who will fulfill the rest of your life? Well, this woman did.
- We'll call her Rosemary. She tells of losing her mother, whom she called,
"her dearest friend," to cancer. Always supportive, Rosemary's mother
clapped loudest at her daughter's school plays, held a box of tissues while
listening to her first heartbreak, comforted her at her father's death,
encouraged her in college, and prayed for her, her entire life.
When Rosemary's mother's illness was diagnosed, Rosemary's sister had a new baby and her brother had recently married his childhood sweetheart; so it fell on Rosemary, the 27-year-old middle child without entanglements, to take care of Mother. She counted it an honor.
Now Rosemary sat at her mother's funeral. The hurt was so intense. She found it hard to breathe. "What now, Lord?" she asked as she sat alone in the hard pew, grieving. Her brother and sister had their families, but she had no one. Her place had been with their mother, preparing her meals, helping her walk, taking her to the doctor, seeing to her medication, reading the Bible together. Now her mother was gone, and she was alone.
Then Rosemary heard a door open and slam shut at the back of the church. Quick footsteps hurried along the carpeted floor. An exasperated young man looked around briefly and then sat next to her. He folded his hands and placed them on his lap. His eyes were brimming with tears. He began to sniffle. "I'm late," he explained, though no explanation was necessary. After several eulogies, he leaned over and asked, "Why do they keep calling Mary by the name of 'Margaret'?"
"Oh," Rosemary replied, "because that was her name, Margaret. Never Mary. No one called her 'Mary.'" She whispered. Rosemary wondered why this person couldn't have sat on the other side of the church. He interrupted her grieving with his tears and fidgeting. Who was this stranger anyway?
"No, that isn't correct," he insisted, as several people glanced over at them whispering,
"Her name is Mary, Mary Peters."
"That isn't who this is," Rosemary replied.
"Isn't this the Lutheran church?" he asked sheepishly.
"No," she said, "the Lutheran church is across the street. I believe you're at the wrong funeral, sir."
The solemnity of the occasion mixed with the realization of the man's mistake bubbled up inside Rosemary and came out as laughter. She cupped her hands over her face, hoping it would be interpreted as sobs. The creaking pew gave her away. Sharp looks from other mourners only made the situation seem more hilarious. She peeked at the bewildered, misguided man seated beside her. He was laughing, too, as he glanced around, deciding it was too late for an uneventful exit. She imagined her mother laughing. At the final "Amen," they darted out a door and into the parking lot.
"I do believe we'll be the talk of the town," he smiled. He said his name was Rick and since he had missed his aunt's funeral, asked her out for a cup of coffee.
That afternoon began a lifelong journey. A year after their meeting, this couple was married at a country church where he was the assistant pastor. This time they both arrived at the same church, right on time. Rosemary writes, "In my time of sorrow, God gave me laughter. In place of loneliness, God gave me love. This past June we celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary." [i]
Jesus had just predicted to the apostles his coming passion and death. They did not understand, or, if they did, they were in no mood to think of their Master, Jesus, dying. On this mountain top Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah of his coming trip to Jerusalem, where he would die. Seems rather strange, here is a man going to his death and on the way he has a moment of dazzling transfiguration, something we associate with heaven. It gives meaning to the old punch line "A funny thing happened to me on the way to being crucified."
Jesus could face death; in fact, he was doing just that in talking to Moses and Elijah about his coming death. But he does it in a moment of blinding ecstasy, assuming the form of the glorified body he would be wearing in heaven after he had died and ascended to his Father. Perhaps Jesus took these three foremost apostles with him onto the mountain top to let them see his glory in preparation for when they would see him torn and bleeding, dying on a cross. Like Rosemary, who found the joy of her life in the sadness of a funeral parlor, Jesus tells us that even in times when we are undergoing hard times, hard enough to equal a crucifixion, there is a glory going on in our lives that will strengthen us if only we have the faith to see it.
We like to set out our own agenda. We don't trust God to plan out our life. We try so hard, and so often we fail. Like the apostles, we don't want Jesus to die. We, like they, have our own plans for Jesus, for our lives. Peter wanted to put up some tents. But Jesus shows the apostles that, if only they would open their eyes, they would see a glorious world, a transfigured Jesus who isn't about to ever die forever.
- A woman was sitting in her patio, having a morning cup of coffee. Suddenly
she felt the presence of someone standing behind her. "I turned with brusque
anxiety," she said. "Then I felt a thrashing shock like a thousand volts
shooting through my entire body. Standing there was Jesus! Was I
hallucinating? No, it really was Jesus, just standing thee, smiling the most
magnetic smile I had ever seen. His face looking like what I imagined it
would have been on the mount of the Transfiguration.
"'Would you like to for a walk?' he asked me.
"Would I? I thought, my stomach doing a roller coaster dive. I jumped up and finally I was able to exclaim, 'Yes, yes, I would very much like to take a walk with you, Jesus? Is it all right for me to call you by your first name? Or would you prefer Master?'
"'Jesus is fine,' he continued to smile ever so graciously. 'Come, let's walk.'
"What a fabulous opportunity, I thought. Walking with Jesus. I had so many questions. Now I could finally get answers. Right from Jesus himself.
"As we walked along, I broke the silence. 'Jesus, you know this doctrine about the Trinity, three Persons in one God. .' 'Shhh,' he whispered. 'do you hear the joyous babbling of that brook over there?' I listened with some impatience, I must admit.
"Then with more of a complaint than a statement of fact, I said, 'Jesus, I've been having a lot of trouble with my prayer life. .' 'Shhh,' he interrupted again. 'can you hear the squeals of the little children playing out there in the meadow? I hadn't heard. And I must admit I couldn't have cared less. Jesus was here and I wanted answers. But I said, 'You know I love children.'
"We kept walking along. 'This final judgment,' I began. 'You know the sheep and the goats? There's nothing there about missing Mass or .' 'Shhh,' Jesus said. 'Look up there at the birds in the sky. Did you ever see anything so beautiful.' By now we had arrived back at my patio. Jesus turned and began to walk away. He hadn't answered one of my questions. And I had so many more. Then he turned and looked at me with that smile of his. I thought he was going to say goodbye. But then his face clouded over with affectionate sadness and he said, 'Why do you try so hard?'" [ii]
- "Years ago when I was in seminary, I did a summer of Clinical Pastoral
Education at St. Elizabeth's Hospital here in the city. Aside from the
courses we took in pastoral care, in psychology and religion, we spent
several hours each day relating to patients on the floor. One of the wards I
covered was a surgical/medical ward -- where the patients were not only
mentally ill, but also were recovering from major surgery or
life-threatening illnesses. Add to this the fact that most of these patients
were poor, black, and victims of addictive behavior - and I found myself in
a wilderness that terrified me.
"One day, after I used my ring of keys to unlike the door to this ward, there was a new patient - a man in isolation - all alone in a room - hanging between life and death - both legs amputated, but with gangrene still creeping through his body. You could smell the stench of his decay even before you entered the room, and he moaned and sweated in a miserable delirium. For an hour I wandered up and down the hall resisting, going into see him - nauseated by his disease and at a total loss as to what to do. What could I - a naïve, twenty-five year old white woman - possibly do or say to ease this man's suffering. For that matter what could God do? And where was God, anyway, in the midst of all this misery?
"Finally, I walked into the room, took his hand, and found myself repeating the words of the Lord's Prayer. And that's when it happened. That's when the holy broke into the human - when God took over and grace flowed through me. This man stopped moaning, his eyes stopped rolling, his body stopped shaking. He turned to look at me and then started repeating the words of the Lord's Prayer with me. For a moment, time stood still. There was, in that room, a peace that passes all understanding. A few minutes later, after I left the room, that man's suffering ended. He died, finding his own peace at last. "Brothers and sister, I can't explain that moment to you any more than I can explain the transfiguration, any more than I can explain to you why Moses' face shone every time he talked to God. But it was for me and for that nameless, miserable man, a holy moment, a transforming moment, and I have rarely doubted the existence of God or the power of prayer since. [iii]
[i] Mom's Last Laugh. Sermon Fodder, as quoted in "In the middle of the
night," Dynamic Preaching, 16 (01): 59-60 (Seven Worlds Corporation, 310
Simmons Road, Knoxville TN 37922), January, February, March.
[ii] T. Ronald Haney, "Transfiguration," Markings Readings - 27 (The Thomas
More Association, 205 West Monroe St. -- Sixth Floor, Chicago IL
60606-5097), March 2001.
[iii] Susan R. Andrews, "Facing God," Lectionary Homiletics 12 (03): 31
(Lectionary Homiletics, Inc., 13540 East Boundary Road, Building 2, Suite
105, Midlothian, VA 23112), February 2001.
(Comments to Jerry at padre@tri-lakes.net. Jerry's book, Stories For All Seasons, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center.)